The present invention relates to a control method and system and an apparatus for safely controlling a customer premises electronic apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as customer premises apparatus) enabling network communication with a controller from the outside of customer premises apparatus via a network.
In recent years, a customer premises apparatus such as home electric appliances and information apparatuses is provided with a network communication function and thereby it is now possible to control such customer premises apparatus with a controller such as a mobile phone and an exclusive small size terminal via the Internet.
Moreover, general households often use, at the time of connecting the customer premises apparatus to the Internet, the Internet connection service of ISP (Internet Service Provider). In this case, each customer premises apparatus is not connected in direct to the outside network, considering the procedures and expense required to enjoy the services and connects only the gateway to the outside network. Therefore, each customer premises apparatus is connected to the outside network via the gateway.
Here, since the data received by the customer premises apparatus always passes the gateway, the security function is concentrated, in some cases, to the gateway in order to alleviate a load for loading the functions of each customer premises apparatus. For example, when it is requested to control the customer premises apparatus from the outside network with a controller, the gateway first confirms that the controller is a legitimate apparatus which is allowed to control such customer premises apparatus and then relays communication between the controller and customer premises apparatus. A controller identification information such as an ID number and an encrypted key information for uniquely identifying the controller is previously registered manually and when it can be confirmed that the electronic apparatus for trying to control the customer premises apparatus has the registered controller identifying information, the gateway judges the electronic apparatus as the legitimate apparatus and relays communication. Thereby, the customer premises apparatus can be safely controlled from the external side without authentication of the controller.
In above techniques, it is required to take once the controller into the customer premises before the actual use in order to register the controller identifying information to the gateway. However, this process cannot be adapted to the controller which cannot be brought into the customer premises such as a controller which is built into a large size facilities such as automobile and cannot be removed and to the controller which is used in the business field and cannot be brought to the outside of the business field.